Chapter 6: Stories from Beyond the Border Town

I was born in the then Bophuthatswana, into a family of ultimately 20 children by 6 siblings: my mother, 3 aunts and 2 uncles. We did not all live in the same house; we moved around between our respective mothers and aunts depending on circumstances. We were all one big happy family until all six siblings had their own homes and each stayed with their own children, although every now and then, one or the other would move and stay with their aunt or uncle for a while.

I am a Motswana woman from Mahikeng, North West Province. My husband is from Limpopo; he says he is Northern Sotho. I say ‘he says’ because culturally, one takes over the culture of one’s father. His grandfather was Tsonga, so does that not make his father Tsonga, and him too? However, we will go with what he says: my husband is Northern Sotho. He grew up in a Northern Sotho-speaking area and his parents were both Northern Sotho. The one person who ‘makes them Tsonga’ – his grandfather – he never met. We have two beautiful children, a pigeon pair, who learn their mother tongue as a subject at school. Did I not just say children take their father’s culture? Why then are my children learning Setswana and not Northern Sotho at school? It was Setswana, Afrikaans, or isiZulu, so Setswana it was.